While local residents and businesses are taking in Ukrainian refugees who are fleeing Russian aggression in their home country, a former Jasperite has travelled in the opposite direction to assist Ukrainians closer to the conflict’s front line.

Since April 6, Andrew Yakielashek has been volunteering in Poland, making supply runs across the Ukrainian border and working with different NGOs to help make life easier for those affected by the Russian invasion. Yakielashek said he felt called to action after seeing news of the desperation that Ukrainians have been faced with since February 24.

“I think a lot of us wish we could do something to help,” the 42-year-old said from near a distribution centre in Kraków, Poland. “I happened to be at a place in my life where I could.”

Driving from where he was overseeing his parents’ properties in Grande Cache, AB, to the airport in Grande Prairie, eventually, Yakielashek touched down in Warsaw, Poland, where he was directed to the city’s convention centre. The centre has been converted to a receiving point for refugees fleeing the conflict in Ukraine. When Yakielashek arrived, it was housing tens of thousands of people. Cots were lined up wall to wall. Coming from the sleepy Alberta Rockies, the scene was chaotic, Yakielashek said. 

“It was not a place you’d want to stay,” he said.

Initially helping set up a space in the centre for children to play, and so their parents could get a break, Yakielashek soon got connected to international volunteers working out of Kraków, 300 kms to the south. Since then, Yakielashek has been recruited as a driver, making several supply runs across the Poland-Ukraine border, delivering goods and materials to distribution centres in Lviv, from where supplies are sent out to those in need—including to Ukrainian soldiers.

“The stuff we delivered on a Thursday hit the front lines by that Sunday,” Yakielashek said.

Items most in-demand include food, clothing, medical supplies, toiletries, portable stoves, pet food, camp fuel and “non-issue” comfort items, he said. To help augment the supply orders, Yakielashek started a GoFundMe campaign. So far it’s raised approximately $6,000.

“Every dollar goes directing to feeding, clothing and giving medicine to Ukrainians and those displaced by war,” he said.

While the work has helped him feel useful, the connections he’s made with the people he’s met have made his trip feel meaningful, Yakielashek said. He’s met countless refugees who don’t know if they have a home to go back to. He’s done supply runs with Ukrainians whose home cities had been levelled. Every day he meets someone whose life has been completely turned upside-down.

“The fact of having your home, job and entire day-to-day life destroyed in front of your own eyes…there’s a lot of people who just don’t know what to do,” he said.

Yakielashek doesn’t have an answer for them, of course, but his experience has given him new perspectives—on privilege, on humanitarianism and on freedom.

“For me one of the biggest driving forces in my life, the thing I value most, is freedom,” Yakielashek said. “So when we drove into Lviv and saw the city functioning, with shops open and young couples walking hand in hand, I was very inspired. Ukrainians want to live their lives. That’s the whole reason the army is fighting as hard as they are.”

That was in mid-April. On his latest supply run, however, the atmosphere in Lviv had taken a sombre turn. Shops were shut. People were leaving the city squares. Alarms rang out, signalling heavy fighting in the south and east of the country. His passenger and fellow-volunteer, a young woman whose home city of Odessa was being shelled, was devastated.

“That was my first time feeling that, seeing that the war is so real and right there,” he said.

On May 9, much of the world was on edge as they awaited to see if Russia would ratchet up what the Kremlin continues to call its “special military operation” in Ukraine. The date is known as Victory in Russia Day (similar to Victory in Europe Day on May 8), and political watchers wondered if Russian President Vladimir Putin would mark the anniversary with increased aggression. When the day ended without any military or policy shifts, Yakielashek said his fellow volunteers were relieved. 

“There’s a lot of fear and trepidation right now,” he said, noting he recently watched with a mixture of awe and horror as an anti-tank Howitzer gun, on delivery from a NATO-aligned country, was transported past his volunteer convoy.

“I got excited, but for my friends it was another reality check of what’s going on in their country.”

For Yakielashek, who plans to be back in Canada’s Rocky Mountains by mid-May, the entire experience has been a reality check.

“Even though I’m here, I’ll never understand what it’s like for Ukrainians. For those of us who live in Canada, we’ll never know what they’re are going through,” he said.

The NGOs that Yakielashek is working with are Fundacja Wolno Nam, Fundacja Hiliniszcze and Volontery Asgard. All accept PayPal donations. 

Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com